


Saving What We Love

by Ma_Kir



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Spoilers, Star Wars: The Last Jedi Spoilers, speculations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-18 18:12:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13105746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ma_Kir/pseuds/Ma_Kir
Summary: Kylo Ren, once Ben Solo, encounters Rey for one last time.





	Saving What We Love

It's finally over.

Kylo Ren finds it strange. He's fallen. The internal combustion of his inner conflict, his pain, has gone out like an empty furnace. It reminds him of the kiln that his Uncle ... that Luke once showed him on Tatooine when he had to forge a new lightsaber after losing it to Darth Vader ... to his grandfather on Cloud City, to ... 

The master of the Knights of Ren, the Supreme Leader of the First Order and the galaxy feels as hollow as that cold, rusted, kiln all but forgotten in the ruins of an Order that no longer existed, of an age-old battle that no longer has any meaning. His grandfather began the beginning of the end of that war. His uncle continued to forge its death knell. He has burned the rest ... He attempted to finish what his family started.

And _she_ finished what he continued. 

She's kneeling over him. He can't actually understand why. The bond that his former Master created between them, or so he said, neither wavered nor dissipated. Someone is propping his head up. Kylo Ren realizes that Rey is has the back of his skull on her thigh. Her hands are cool as they hold both sides of his face. The scar, from where she slashed him with his grandfather's old Jedi lightsaber on Starkiller Base tingles, temporarily bringing the warmth back into his core. 

"Stay with me, Ben." She murmurs urgently. "I will. We will ..."

He can't help it. He laughs. It comes out as a hissing croak, but he manages to chuckle. He was right. The Jedi and the Sith, the light and the dark sides of the Force, they were all so ... ridiculous. _This_ is ridiculous. 

"You ..." He tries to speak. "... don't need to lie ..."

Rey shakes her head. She's squeezing her eyes shut. He can feel her fingers clench his face gently, but firmly. "I can ... I can save you, Ben."

"No." He manages to raise his voice. "No, it's ... too late ... for that." 

He's right, and she knows it. They have been fighting, ever since they have known each other. If she had been going to save him, it would have been on the _Supremacy_ , and even then she had rejected his offer to rule at his side. Or maybe, if he thought about it, it was on Starkiller Base when they ran into each other again, before she saw him kill Han Solo, kill ... his own father ... Kylo Ren doesn't know. He doesn't remember. Maybe it was always too late. 

Rey doesn't have to voice her denial. He breathes out, painfully.

"Ben Solo is dead." He whispers, realizing that he is telling her the truth, as life ebbs away from his body. "He ... he died at the Jedi Training Temple ... under his Master's blade ..."

"Ben ..." 

He manages to use the last of his strength to raise his hand. He touches her cheek even as he feels something wet drop down on his face.

"I wish ..." He gasps. "I wish ... I could have known you then. Then, maybe ..."

Rey takes his hand and grasps it. He doesn't have to say any more. He can't breathe. He's struggling for air, just like all his victims, just as he had that night when his own Master, his uncle woke him up with his emerald lightsaber hovering over his face. His vision becomes watery. He curses himself for his weakness, for crying like the scared little boy he always was.

"I wish I could have been there too." Rey says softly, her voice breaking, even as she strokes his hair. 

He's scared. The Master of the Knights of Ren, the Supreme Leader of the First Order, the heir to Darth Vader himself, Kylo Ren is afraid to die, terrified of facing all those people he slaughtered, all the loved ones he disappointed and threw away like trash, leaving all those lives that needed the sense of security and stability that he never had, leaving the lie of that to face the ultimate unknown ... 

And worst of all ... Leaving Rey alone. As she shouldn't have been.

He's sobbing, saying two words over and over again in his head and knowing that she can hear them too. He's wet. It reminds him of their bond and her time on Ahch-to when he thought he could feel the drops of rain in the air, the foam of the sea from her skin, even deep in the artificial bowels of the _Supremacy_ 's holding bay. Then he realizes it. He can sense it now, through the Force, without his narrowed minded focus, his pain ... There are so many lights now, so many stars, throughout the galaxy, so much radiance ...

And right now all of it is centered around Rey.

"Take ..." He says around his thick tongue and dry throat. "Take ... care of them ... Rey ..."

 _Don't fail them like Luke did._ He thinks to himself. _Like the Jedi did. Like I ..._

"I will." Rey says.

Despite himself, he thinks about his father's arms. His mother's smile. Then he ponders the mystery of Luke not leaving footprints on Crait, the Jedi Master's no longer trailing blood. He wonders how he did that, that day, on Crait. It is his last conscious thought. Rey holds him until the last ember that is Ben Solo finally fades away. Rey continues holding Ben, crying silently at this person she never really knew, the person he could have been, and having to do what had to be done. 

Then, after ages, she leans down, and closes his eyes. Then she kisses his forehead. She will keep that promise. To him. To Luke and Leia. To Han. To the galaxy, and the next generation. And, to herself. 

 


End file.
